Saturday, May 30, 2009

Sentence

Endless party, endless polity on the hill the city of man the city of man standing over, against the city of God the idealization of the father the father I argue against so vociferously with philosophy but so few are philosophers and to them my usual methods are useless here they only get ground down into seething torpor which waits can wait centuries to burst back onto the world only their lifestyles are addictive their lifestyles in which we find gods and find man but I want to find the gods of little things and want to take those little things, those swarming little insights and make a godhead out of them just like small children make precocious sculptures with their food or maybe they don’t maybe I just conceive and image and compellingness becomes reality some adage like this but we know compellingness isn’t reality oh we writers know we’re always accused of being unrealistic uninteresting unenlightening corrupting more positively corrupting the youth the innocence the idyllic nature of life in late capitalist society yes indeed what a wonderful life what a wonderful wonderful life of things and gadgets and blinking lights the blinking lights at nightclubs the blinking lights of airplanes at night the blinking flashing swooshing lights of the CN Tower the blinking lights of jumbo screen billboards the blinking lights of car brakes going on and off on and off winking all the way looking westward over the 401 and the collectors snaking in but it’s not just blinking lights the blinking lights of ADD induction no no it’s the whooshing sounds the thumping sounds thumping in goth clubs sweating taking out frustrations Dionysus is here let’s sway let’s thrust our arms to Nyx to Erebus (but in opposition to Erebus) we experience catharsis the catharsis of tragedy and also of euphony we spew out dysphemisms when we’re out of the dance floor when we can hear each other again when we’ve avoided the glaring thumping of the amp stack godhead still thronged by worshippers still drugged modern rituals finding new commercial forms finding new promiscuous forms embedded in discourses of expressing selves but that never ever meant anything no self no easily discernible self anyway aside from what you wear how you speak what you’ve read watched listened to what foods you can make what sports you do how you exercise what your religion is what your interests are how you list yourself on Facebook under interests favourite this favourite I didn’t ask your name or your consumption habits I asked your behaviour habits but even that’s shallow are you narcissistic melancholic ISTJ ENFP what are you categorize what’s your OCEAN profile what’s your sign what shoes do you wear look how you dance we could be lovers we could be friends we will be enemies what do your parents do what do your children do which pictures will you show me which liquors will you feed me what is your taste in streets are you King St. or Queen St. neither perhaps perhaps you’re specially unique a snowflake a rebel an iconoclast go see all the other iconoclasts you’re Davenport you’re College and Spadina you’re the Metro Convention Centre you’re a man of rarified taste you’re a cigar shop you’re a metaphysician you’ll be a great teacher a great father a great dad a pops a poppa a dada you’ll be your son’s first word you’re a genetic cluster you’re decaying slowly what director of Hollywood films are you or if you’re into that what Bollywood song-and-dance scene are you what flitting occupation what car do you drive how does the electricity get to your house where did your food come from what wars currently sustain your new cellphone who do you fantasize about when you masturbate which cottage town are you what kind of flooring which kinds of wallpaper moldings nails screws finishing nails finishing screws topsoil layer primer coat of pain repeat coat caulking studs stud finders chandeliers tea lights which gods do you kill what animal’s poop do you scoop are you civically-minded are you organized are you smart everyone says they are everyone thinks they are everyone thinks everyone everyone thinks they’re the one the only one the protagonist there are no protagonists but if there are no protagonists there are no selves and others no antagonists to protagonists if there are no protagonists there are no plots if there are no plots there’s no growth no development no arc no lessons learned no things as thy ought to be art puts the veil of normativity over the world Nietzsche’s early work supports me and bite-sized philosophy podcasts support me the fight is for values in a universe that does not care art is the sheet but it’s up to each of us to live the art live the values live just to live and live without reifying that’s the biggest mistake probably the reification is a big mistake and people die in a meaningless universe but people die in a meaning-imagination stunted universe as well so show me blinking lights that blink out the form of the Good show me show me I am waiting with arms wide open I am waiting for the cacophony of the world’s music to yield the music of the spheres we’ve disenchanted and disinfected so we can live life does not disinfect life infects with ceaseless striving all my organs ceaselessly strive and all my body allows for this allows one to be rocky all my everything allows for this but let’s not be melodramatic all the punctuation in the world can’t hold some things at bay at bay all things bay away at the moon ceaselessly searching to perfect the self-organization that is the self no self beyond self-organization thermodynamic selves we are and what is our time and what are our dreams what is our space and the spaces we open how do we open them do we open the reducing valve what is that metaphor anyway but we dream metaphor and we are creatures that bind we have ties that bind that bind mother to son to grandson to uncle to friend to rival (yes, even rival) we ice spiderwebs of bad poetry we dewdrop curtains over real reality capital r reality we dewdrop curtains we butterflies dreaming we butterflies wafting we RAF fliers in the battle of England we who strive to be free somehow in any ways we mandarins who are so lucky and yet pretend we’re poor we mandarins with an obligation to assist we never live up to we mandarins oh we mandarins who eat children (we don’t actually—this is a metaphor) a metaphor for what exactly what are we binding what is coming together is this some personal narrative function that will heal all is this is is that it can I find it in the corner and I go back to asking my usual questions (see above) why do you drink your life away sometimes why do you drink days away how do you lose days can you change that can you get away is getting away getting away or is it lack of preparation is getting away really getting away oh this is what you’re worrying about prospectively but fear not fear not my child worry not not yet. In the dawn of a new day is the dawn of all that is; here is all there is; now. Attend to this. Attend to the means by which you convince yourself the past has substance, and see them for what they are: mechanisms of ignorance. Willful ignorance, comforting ignorance sometimes (and sometimes ignorance of the most discomforting variety). Do you really want the wounds of childhood to have substance? They have substance, but they are puffs of wind, neuron clouds, vague shapes that play before your eyes before going to sleep. Treat them as dreams, and life comes more easily. More easily is more smoothly. And where there is smoothness, the joyous running of magnetized springs, there is love. For love is what you project here and now. Love was never otherwise. Love of God is too abstract, and love of self is too prospective and backward-looking.

Consider: "When are we?"